Free improvisation breaks a lot of musical rules, but when played by gifted musicians who have learned those rules before disregarding some, free jazz is often more coherent than at first appears.
Finding that coherence may mean listening to the music over and over, but it can be worthwhile, as is the case with a new release on Pi Recordings, Live at the Village Vanguard, by the Marc Ribot Trio, featuring bassist Henry Grimes and drummer Chad Taylor.
I like the element of the unexpected that Ribot's off-the-wall playing introduces to the music of songwriters such as Tom Waits and Elvis Costello, and because the recordings document - surprisingly - the guitarist's first residency at New York's Village Vanguard, in 2012. Ribot's playing is far from mainstream, but he has recorded with pianist McCoy Tyner, composer-saxophonist John Zorn and pianist-singer Diana Krall, among many others.
Giving the album a particular sense of occasion is the fact that it marks Grimes' return to the Vanguard after an interval of 48 years - for many of which he was widely assumed to be dead.
Grimes, 78, has made one of the most remarkable comebacks in jazz. Born in Philadelphia, he emerged in the 1950s as an accomplished and versatile bassist, working with composers such as Thelonious Monk, Gerry Mulligan and, in a twin bass line-up, Charles Mingus.
Grimes was drawn to free jazz, and in the early 1960s was one of the sidemen of choice for the leading lights of the sound including Albert Ayler, Don Cherry, Archie Shepp and Cecil Taylor.